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At the onset of the Greek sovereign debt crisis in early 2010, the French government asked French banks to retain plummeting Greek bonds on their balance sheets. And the French banks did exactly that. At around the same time, the German government also asked German banks to retain plummeting Greek bonds on their balance sheets. Yet German banks sold the bonds abundantly. Both governments depended on profit-oriented banks to fulfil a mission of public interest, but neither had formal levers to ensure that banks would do as they were told. Why did the French banks comply with their government's request while their German counterparts did not? Taking advantage of an opportunistic design and building on data gathered in newspapers and through 20 in-depth interviews, this paper argues that banks' decisions are the result of long-term institutionalized state-bank modes of coordination in France and Germany. In France, bankers understood the government's request as being embedded within a long-term relationship of reciprocal favours, which led them to comply. In Germany, state officials resorted to straightforward pressures such as naming and shaming banks. But as soon as the pressure died down, the banks sold out. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper deals with political as well as economic collaboration. It conceptualises collaboration as a form of cooperation with the occupying power that is - at least to a certain extent - voluntary and goes beyond the search for a pure modus vivendi. The aim of the paper is twofold. First, it presents a synopsis of the framework and central political aspects of collaboration in France. In doing so, it points out the classic distinction between state collaboration and collaborationism, stressing, however, that this distinction is not clear-cut. Both state collaboration and collaborationism interacted with and influenced each other, as is shown by the armed collaboration. Second, the paper problematises one particular dimension of collaboration, which the historiography has rather neglected even though it was the most prevalent and crucial of factors for the occupying power: economic collaboration and especially business collaboration. Focusing on the example of the construction industry, it maps out different patterns of behaviour of companies within the framework of the German policy of economic exploitation and Vichy's economic state collaboration. Even though proper 'economic collaborationism' was as rare as proper resistance, the great majority of enterprises accommodated themselves to the new circumstances. This accommodation could, however, take very different forms. Choices were based on multiple, partially overlapping, partially contradictory logics, and both collaboration and resistance proved to be multidimensional phenomena. It is argued that collaboration is and remains a fruitful concept for the study of occupations, including economic issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Germany's apprenticeship system is and has always been considered to be the major sub-system of VET. In this context, the debate circling around the European and German Qualifications Framework (EQF and DQR) has become one of the central issues of VET research and policy. Tasks take on a concrete shape if (a) a serious approach is adopted towards the ideas underlying the European Qualifications Framework; and (b) if consideration is given to the 'construction sites' typical for the German VET system as a whole. This paper intends to sharpen VET policy awareness for the problem of dealing with those unresolved German VET issues within the context of the development of the DQR. A comparative view includes Austria and France as two countries with diverging learning cultures in VET from the German case, but obviously with more 'European' imprints within their respective VET systems. It can be shown that there is an interrelation between the attention apprenticeships as such receive against the background of European ideas such as 'progression', 'permeability' and 'lifelong learning' (LLL), including the implementation and use of 'hybrid qualifications'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The so-called 'hard Euroscepticism' is usually perceived, in the scientific literature as well as in the journalistic and political one, as a national phenomenon: Not only are the movements opposed to the EU labelled as 'nationalistic' or 'anti-European', but they are also explained mainly by national factors - usually combined with more strategic elements. This paper challenges both of these assumptions by confronting them to an analysis of the left-wing critiques made against the Constitutional Treaty in France and Germany. It first highlights that the left-wing critiques made against the current EU mostly contain social and democratic arguments and that their identity dimension mixes national and European elements. Besides, after examining the advantages and limits of the dominant explanations given to the radical oppositions to the EU, we will propose a theoretical framework combining at the same time strategic and ideological elements - very much related to the 'agency' dimension - and a broader structural approach - insisting on the constraints encompassing social and political actions. This double endeavour - a new comprehensive analysis of the ideological content of left-wing opposition to the EU and an original explanatory approach to it - should in the end force us both to question the common terminology of 'Euroscepticism' and to grant more importance to the European dimension in the study of the radical oppositions to the EU. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For many inhabitants of the Habsburg Empire, the Revolution of 1848 represented a common formative experience, signifying their entrance into the public sphere, their initial participation in politics and civil society. While some revolutionaries were executed or given amnesty, many sought refuge in Zurich, London, Constantinople, and especially Paris. This paper examines this international (and largely 'cosmopolitan') network of 1848ers in exile, focusing in particular on Simon Deutsch (1822-77), a young Austrian Jew who became a radical journalist in Vienna during the Revolution, as well as an ardent proponent of the 'Greater German Solution' [Grossdeutsche Losung], before fleeing the firing squads at the end of 1848. During his thirty years in exile (Zurich, London, Paris, Constantinople, Madrid), this curious figure became involved in the Paris Commune, the International Workingmen's Association, and even helped found the New Ottomans (during his prolonged sojourn in Paris). His contacts with fellow 1848s from the Habsburg Empire and from other European countries (e.g. Karl Marx, Moses Hess) helped inform the perennial tension between liberal nationalism and international socialism that characterised Deutsch's life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

European pension systems are in the process of change. A general development is the retrenchment of public schemes. In combination with the aim of individualizing pension entitlements, it is crucial that the pension situation of women, and of mothers in particular, be improved. Some European countries attempt to reduce the gender pension gaps with child care credits. This paper takes a closer look at the French and German systems. Can adjustments to the pension norm, in terms of different allowances for child care as introduced in both countries, balance gender pension gaps? Following the logic of the individual factors, the duration of insurance and the level of paid contributions, the main factors are analysed to evaluate the efficiency of care credits. Within the complexity of pension-related factors, adjustments to the originally male pension norms have very ambiguous effects, and they are insufficient to de-gender pension gaps. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With more than 10 million Muslims living in Western Europe, states are struggling to accommodate the religious needs of Muslims in state-supported institutions. Such issues include whether to fund separate Islamic schools and how or whether to teach Islam in state-supported schools. Despite these common concerns, national governments vary widely in their response to the religious needs and practices of Muslim citizens and permanent residents. This paper looks at how Britain, France and Germany have resolved these issues. We explore how pre-existing Church-State practices and institutional arrangements structured the politics of state accommodation of Muslims' religious needs in each country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the relationships between the migratory policies of the EU countries with more experience of immigration and their national political cultures. It focuses on France, Germany and the United Kingdom. It then looks at Italy, a relatively new country of immigration, which, with 3,000,000 legal immigrants, has become the fourth country of immigration in Europe and the first in the Mediterranean basin. In its final part it highlights the incipient process of 'communitarisation' of the immigration policies of EU countries in the last decade. This process, which has already entailed a significant convergence of their migratory policies, is expected to continue after the recent enlargement of the European Union. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]